


Lessons in Privacy

by daisybrien



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, F/M, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Multi, Other, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: e067-069 Story and Song Parts 1-3, Pre-Episode: e060-066 The Stolen Century Parts 1-7, Reconciliation, Recovery, Walking In On Someone, in which Taako and Lucretia stay a good platonic distance from each other at all times, maybe? WHO KNOOOWS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-04-11
Packaged: 2019-04-21 17:58:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14290275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisybrien/pseuds/daisybrien
Summary: Magnus, Taako, and Lucretia learn to navigate each other's space after one hundred-odd years.And learn again.And again.





	Lessons in Privacy

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: "the key is under the mat."
> 
> That good good shit where Mags loves Luc and Taako and they love him back while Luc and Taako keep a very close and strictly platonic relationship where they paint each others nails and talk about what Magnus shoved in his mouth today. And that good angst stuff where they have to figure it out afterwards.

Lucretia is already tucked up between the wall and the shelter of Magnus’ broad shoulder when the door swings fully open, the initial jiggle of the handle and the creak of the hinges having sent her from her fervent perch in Magnus’ bare lap to flinging herself into cover. She’s clambering for purchase on the bed sheets before Magnus can reel in his protest at her absence, only to look up with wide brown saucers for eyes and grab his own corner of the duvet to cover his crotch.

“Fuck-!” Magnus says, indignant, flushed from his sweaty cheeks down to his bare chest as he scrambles on the mattress aimlessly, for his shirt or his underwear – _for her shirt or her underwear_ – all while protesting much too loudly for the lazy morning the two had wanted to keep as peaceful and undisturbed as possible during their rendezvous. “What are you-!”

“O-kay!” the intruder says, and Lucretia buries herself further into the scraps of blankets she’s scavenged to protect her body from view. “This is great! This is something to greet this Thursday morning with! Great panoramic view of the horn dog fest from TaakoTown up here!”

“You could at least fucking knock!” Magnus cries, laughter tracing his tone of offended humiliation as he slumps slightly, the defensiveness of his stance dissipating just so with the knowledge of the Taako’s own familiarity with this disheveled scene, at least from his point of view.

“Oh of course,” Taako cries, “let me just remind myself how I need to knock on my own boyfriend’s door like I’m just a freaking stranger to your own damn bedroom."

“Well you know you’re not the only one sharing it with me!” Magnus says. Lucretia feels her face burn, mortification making her curl into herself. She pulls her knees in close, the sheets wrapped around her in a cocoon as she stares just beyond Taako’s face because dear gods can she not look him in the face right now, the three of them in an unspoken struggle to keep from making eye contact at all costs.

“Jeezy creezy,” Taako mutters. He has two mugs in his hands that Lucretia is surprised he hasn’t dropped. His body is half-turned towards the door, like he knows he should be leaving even as he lingers, drawn to stay by the morbid curiosity of stumbling upon something he knows he shouldn’t be staring at but can’t look away from. “I try to treat my man with his coffee in the morning, and this is what I’m greeted with?” He steps forward only to leave one mug on the bedside table and a quick, cheeky peck on Magnus’ temple as he shuffles back. “The indignity, the betrayal, the complete disregard for all the work I put in to make my man happy-“

“He’s my man this morning,” Lucretia says, trying to sound shrewd as her tongue sticks and skips over each word. 

“Oh, and I can definitely tell you’re treating him as well,” Taako say. Lucretia winds one clever hand around Magnus’ waist, squeezing him through the thin blankets and earning a yelp in response.

“Alright! ‘Cha boy is out.” Taako turns around completely now, walking out with his hands held high, his tangled mess of hair trailing after him. “Put a sock on the door next time, m’kay Maggie?”

“Like you’d care.” Magnus says.

“We could lock the door and he’d still break it down,” Lucretia mumbles into the small of Magnus’ back.

“Oh please, I have more taste than rushing in like this barbarian,” Taako says, and Lucretia’s laughter dances over Magnus’ skin as he turns around to face her again. Meanwhile, Taako finally slips out the door. “I would have swiped the key from under his adorable nose before I could waste a cantrip on your doorknob

“Speaking of knobs,” he says, gone from view but voice still drifting from down the hall. They snicker into each other’s necks as Magnus sprinkles kisses over her chest, Lucretia hiding the redness of her cheeks in the darkness of the mattress, “don’t have too much fun in there, I’ll have breakfast ready in ten.”

The bastard leaves the door open, as if his crooning voice hadn’t alerted the entire ship to the going-ons of the transpirings of Magnus’ bed. When Lucretia finally resurfaces with the help of Magnus’ tender coaxing, flustered and chagrined in a way that is almost delightful, his hands on her have already left her torn between insisting they get up and shut the door for whatever scrap of privacy they can muster now and begging for the release the interruption had rudely denied her.

#

There’s a familiar ruckus outside of her office that has become routine over the past few months, drawing her out of her carefully cultivated concentration and forcing her to turn her eyes away from the neat script lined out in front of her. The door is closed, locked and secure not only for her privacy – often impinged upon for the past few weeks, she thinks with much more silent mirth than she should but has earned after more than a decade alone – but as a fabrication of a wise distance from the rest of the employees. One that the boys fooling around outside her door seem to find joy in violating.

“You can’t just barge in!” one voice says, rough and kind despite being muffled by the closed door. Lucretia snickers to herself at the irony of Magnus waiting, for permission no less, to rush in. 

“Fuckin’ watch me, big guy,” another answers, the mocking lilt so strange to her ears she’s forced herself to stop startling over it. She waves one hand towards her door, the quiet click of the lock sounding just as the handle turns and the three of them come tumbling in. “Like the Director doesn’t owe me the courtesy of free reign while we’re – oh shit, how’s it hanging, Creesh?”

“I believe some professionalism is in order,” Lucretia says, deadpan. She turns back to her paperwork with false nonchalance as Taako leads the fray inside, Magnus lingering over her bookshelves, Merle scowling at the decorative plants at the corner of her desk as he fiddles with their plastic petals.

“Y’know ma’am, you really should get a lock for your office door,” he continues. He moves towards her desk, one manicured, scarred hand braced on its ledge while the other twirls a dyed lock of hair between its fingers. He grins with his own manufactured indifference, his once bright eyes sunken into tired and lidded sockets, the curl of his lips too malicious to be comfortable. “People can just come bargin’ in here.”

This is beyond the dramatics of his younger years, more than just the untouched glamour that keeps Seekers stuttering over their orders. There are hints of a forced distance from the intimate here, behaviour that keeps Angus, keeps Magnus and Merle, at arms length in an attempt to keep him unscathed, necessitating a debilitating insincerity. Lucretia clears her throat, steeling herself.

“Oh there is,” she says simply, looking up at him again. She perches her chin over her knobbly, steepled fingers, meeting him with her own obligatory façade. The soft smile she gives him turns her gut over. “I wouldn’t have opened it when I heard you coming down the corridor if I didn’t want you to enter.”

“Ooh, someone’s been spying on us, huh,” Taako says. He lets his split end tumble over his shoulder, picking nervously at his nail polish as he scrutinizes her. “How did you know I never knock?”

#

The rocky slope up towards the cliffsides that border the remaining spires of Raven’s Roost prove themselves a fitful challenger for Lucretia’s old knees, but after a quarter hour of struggle and a scavenged walking stick from the sparse woods of the countryside she can see Magnus’ wind vane peeking up over the horizon to greet her. The timber shingles of his home rise up with the rest of the cabin as the ground plateaus beneath her feet, and with the sight of smoke pluming from its chimney comes the distant scent of firewood and something savory baking in the air, and she can’t help but think it smells like home.

At this point, it’s called a cabin just out of habit. What used to be the cramped three rooms of Magnus’ first home after the day of Story and Song had turned into a rustic mansion with a monster of a front porch, scaffolding branching out even further to accommodate more rooms, for two greenhouses – one where the dogs can roam and the other for the plants that could make them sick – for a library, a bigger kitchen. Its intricate carvings can be seen over the fence lining the property, its gates shut but never locked, only something to keep the dogs in and never people out. Through the lattice of it she can see canines of all breeds running about, puppies tumbling through the grass with floppy ears and lolling tongues as they trip over their too-big paws.

Some bark at her, rushing to the fence and jumping over each other as their snouts poke out in the gaps to get a good sniff at her, tails flailing wildly at the prospect of greeting such a curious stranger. Most linger by the patio, though, where Lucretia can see Magnus trekking back to his open front door, small as an ant in the distance. Others follow another form as it saunters down the cobblestone path.

They meet at the gate that splits the roadside from the drive up to Magnus’ home, and the pang of guilt that hops in her stomach makes her utter a yelp. She waits patiently to be let past, even though she knows it can’t be granted with his permission, at least not his alone.

“Oh, it’s you,” Taako says. His face is pinched like he’s sucking on something sour.

“Taako,” Lucretia responds, her voice a wisp of a breath as her chest grows tight. Despite herself, she smiles. It’s a sad thing. “How are you?”

“Hm, wouldn’t you like to know,” he mutters, his eyebrows jumping and his lips pursed. He tries to squeeze past her, his body wound tight like a spring as it bumps into her, and despite his breezy attitude his fists flex under his robes – she realizes there’s a wide-eyed Chihuahua trembling in his cupped palm, a gift he was leaving with, and she almost laughs. “I’ve been doing quite fine, actually. Much better now I’ve not seen you until now, huh?”

“That’s” Lucretia stutters. Her fingers grip her walking stick, the past months of crying and screaming and guilt and _why why why did you do this_ threatening to bubble up to the surface as their eyes meet. “That’s good to hear,” she settles on, pushing it down. “You look good.”

It’s more than just a formality; he’s gained weight since she’s last seen him, the sickly pallor he had tries to hide under Glamours and makeup rounded out and flushed with rich colour again, the bones barely contouring the angles of his round cheeks. He’s cut his hair, letting his natural colour streak the bleach that had dyed it raw, the circles under his eyes less prominent. She can see it in his ears, for gods’ sake, raised higher with an expression of proper certainty, each movement sure even as they twitch with his irritation. 

“Why thank you,” he responds. “Nice of you to point out the obvious.”

“You’re welcome,” she says, “and -“

“Shouldn’t you be getting up towards Magnus’ now?” he asks pointedly. “He made it very clear you were coming over, and I didn’t want to intrude on the two of you.”

“Taako,” she says. “You know I wouldn’t try to keep you two apart just for my sake.”

“Well, I mean, you already did bubelleh, so I’d watch that mouth of yours,” he retorts, and she can’t even try to rise up to defend herself before he continues. “And listen, as much as I’m furious at the fact that my doofus is welcoming you back into his open arms after all the shit you’ve pulled, he can take care of himself and I don’t care what you do. What y’all get up to is not Taako Central.” He waves his hand as if brushing off the pain that makes his voice thin and reedy, like it weighed nothing even as she can feel her own shoulders slumping down towards the earth with it, like it wasn’t doing the same to him. “And you better not make it.”

“Of course,” she breathes. Then, “he has too much love for his own good.”

Taako scoffs, and when she turns to look at him she can see it’s a laugh, a sad twist of his lips as he stares somewhere distantly with a fond glint to his eyes. “Magnus and his fuckin’ bleeding heart,” he sighs, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you did to deserve it.”

“Like I’ll ever find out,” she says, smiling softly as she turns back to the gate. She wants to put a hand to his shoulder, thinks of the skittish animal that yaps in Taako’s already unyielding arms and decides against it. “Get home safely.”

“Mm, you two don’t have too much fun either,” he says, and he calls after her as she passes through the gate.

“Yo Creesh,” she almost jumps at the nickname, turning to face him as his face spies her over the fence. 

“Don’t bother knocking,” he shrugs. “He’s got the key under the mat already.”

**Author's Note:**

> at @daisybrien on tumblr hmu


End file.
